


how the cynic falls in love

by odoridango



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Common Cold, High School, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odoridango/pseuds/odoridango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi falls in love while trying to buy medicine at a drugstore. Eren helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how the cynic falls in love

**Author's Note:**

> Completely based on this fantastic poem: http://kaitrokowski.tumblr.com/post/59453081006/how-the-cynic-falls-in-love

Levi sniffs as he browses the aisles for a cold medicine that doesn’t taste like absolute shit, and he knows that there’s one brand in particular that tastes a little less shit than the others, but he’s got a fever and a cough and he can’t think all that clearly right now.

"Won’t any of these work?"

So of course the person who’d be accompanying him is an idiot who can’t think himself out of a fucking thimble.

"No," Levi hisses, voice muffled by the absurdly thick scarf piled around his neck, up to his nose. "They fuckin’ won’t." He sniffs, and is immediately horrified by the terrible sucking noise that comes from his nostrils. When Eren offers him a pack of tissues, he just swipes the pack out his hand, glaring. He goes back to staring dazedly at the shelves, scowling when the colors and words begin to swirl together, and it’s his underclassman’s tentative touch that jolts him back into his body.

"Do you know what you’re looking for?"

"Of course I do," he growls, turning sharply, wobbling a little. Eren steadies him by the shoulders, and Levi slaps his hands away, irrationally angry that Eren gets to walk around on stable ground _and_ be tall.

"—Let me help—"

"—let go you fucking big-ass tree—"

"—you’re sick you need to rest—"

"—don’t you feed me that bullshit—"

"—look, you can’t even see straight right now, just let me—"

"—stop bothering me I’ll call sexual harassment—"

"Just sit down and shut up!" Eren huffs, presses Levi into a bench he hadn’t known was there before; when did they get to the front of the store? He rubs at his forehead, doesn’t even have the energy to complain about the sweat there. "I’ll get you your medicine, okay? Just, just sit here and wait for me. Don’t leave."

"Not a dog," Levi mutters grumpily, but he has to admit that sitting like this makes the room stop spinning a little.

It feels like he’s been staring at the strangely mesmerizing drugstore carpet for ages when a pair of familiar, ratty trainers comes back into view. He looks up, and is confronted with an almost offensively brightly colored four-pack of peanut-butter cups, not Reese’s or generic brand, but the kind from that old-fashioned local candy store that’s been turning up all over lately.

"You like these, right?" Eren asks, and his smile is small and affectionate, and Levi’s feels like of all the grins and smirks and sneers he’s seen on Eren’s face, he’s never seen this one. He takes the package, mutters a short thank you, and when Eren frowns and holds a cool hand to his forehead, he can’t help but curl into it a little, wondering how Eren knew about his favorite peanut butter cups. Peering into the shopping bag, he spots a familiar gradient colored box. 

Eren even got the right cold medicine.

And it’s when Eren guides him out the door, hovering so close behind he can feel the body heat rolling off the boy in waves, that he feels his chest clench, and he thinks, _oh_.


End file.
